Etappe 8 - zaterdag 14 mei Vertrekpunt: Sarpi - Tropea Afstand: 214 km

FROM SAPRI TO TROPEA

Maratea
Maratea is one city with two souls, it could be said one for surf and one for turf, squeezed between Campania and Calabria. A double identity which can be experienced while visiting the village perched on the slopes of Monte San Biagio, and also the districts rising up directly above the sea. Maratea overlooks the Policastro Gulf and is famous for its great number of churches, well in the number of 44, frequently embellished with ceramic tiles flooring. Yet the true symbol of the city is the il Cristo  poking out of the Monte San Biagio. While climbing towards the summit the route crosses the sanctuary with its three-arched Renaissance portal dedicated to the saint. The site is a very appreciated and profoundly felt place of pilgrimage in the area.

Diamante
This ancient village of Calabria overlooking the sea, has been transformed during the Eighties into a true open air museum, by the work of a community of Italian and Foreign artists who embellished the walls with original murales, and created a sort of open gallery formed by the bright colored houses of the historical town center. The beach, in an half-moon shape, embraces an incredibly blue sea. In the immediate hinterland a number of coves can be seen.

Paola
The old town, dominated by the Torre dell’Orologio, is accessible through the monumental Porta San Francesco. Paola’s most important artistic witness is constituted by the Madonna di Montevergine Church, boasting a baroque façade. The Chiesa del Rosario can be considered a small baroque jewel, with its seventeenth-century high altar made of polychrome marble and its sixteenth-century table of the Flemish school. Moreover the little town is renown for its San Francesco’s Sanctuary, raised in the second half of the fifteenth-century, which keeps the remains of a saint in a late Renaissance chapel. The poetic belvedere of Fiumefreddo Bruzio, considered as the most beautiful balcony over the sea of Calabria, is worth visiting.